The United States holds the world’s largest
prison population, caging more humans than any other nation on earth. In a
situation that is not only internationally unparalleled but also historically
unprecedented, every day more than 2 million people are barred somewhere within
this nation’s vast archipelago of prisons, jails, and immigrant detention
centers. Another 7.2 million are on probation, on parole, or under a
deportation order.–
Kelly Lytle Hernández, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, and Heather Ann Thompson in “Introduction:
Constructing the Carceral State”The Journal of American History explores
the nature of incarceration in
the US and the history of the carceral state in a new
special issue. We’ve put together a reading list of articles:
- “’A War within Our Own
Boundaries’: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the Rise of the Carceral State”
by Elizabeth Hinton- “African American Women,
Mass Incarceration, and the Politics of Protection” by Kali Nicole Gross- “Queer Law and Order: Sex,
Criminality, and Policing in the Late Twentieth Century United States” by
Timothy Stewart-Winter- “Impossible Criminals: The
Suburban Imperatives of America’s War on Drugs” by Matthew D. LassiterBrowse the
rest of the issue, freely accessible now.
Image Credit: “Prison Cell” by Alexandre Vanier. Public Domain via Pixabay.
Waiting for Winter 